''Me Before You'' by Jojo Moyes

My rating:✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪  5/10

Book cover rating: ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ 2/5

One book in one gif:

I've had this book on my ''Someday'' list for a long time, and Ed Sheeran finally convinced me to get up and read it. I watched the trailer of the movie that is about to come out and the next day I found myself buying the book on my Kindle. And all the time I spent reading, the movie soundtrack by Ed Sheeran, ''Photograph'', was stuck in my mind. Even though I only heard the song two times and couldn't remember all the lyrics, and I loved the song so much that it might have influenced how much I enjoyed the book. So yes, whatever I'm writing next may or may not be biased.
(Not to mention that the choice of casting Sam Clafflin as Will Traynor already looks really promising!)
If you're looking to read ''Me Before You'', I really recommend listening to ''Photographs'' by Ed Sheeran first. Here it is:

Confession: I read it in a rush because I had so much to do but I couldn't put it down! So I did not have time to analyse the details as I usually do with all my books.


So overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. I think I would have loved it more if there was a tear-jerking factor toward the ending. You know, something that could make me ugly-cry! I just felt there was something missing when the ending didn't make me cry, either that or I have a heart of stone.





Summary

The day Louisa Clark lost her job at the Buttered Bun, she knew her life would never be the same. In her late 20s and living in the same town all her life, she knows she needs to find a job really fast in order to keep supporting her family - her parents struggling financially, a disabled grandfather and her younger sister with her baby son, and Louisa is the only breadwinner.
After a consultation at the Job Centre, she finally manages to find something suitable: the role of a caretaker at the Traynor's home with a 6 months contract.

The book starts by introducing Will Traynor, with a brief view of his energetic and adventurous life just before he encounters his tragic accident that causes him to become quadriplegic. With most of his body paralyzed, Will finds it difficult to adjust and accept his new life and thus, it turns him to a bitter person who wished to quit everything.

Louisa finally finds a temporary caretaker job at none other than Will Traynor's house.
Although at first he confronts her with a freezing, cold attitude, just as he does with everyone else, the two eventually start to understand each other. Until Louisa realizes what's really going on in Will's head and how it will affect everyone around him...


Brief Opinion

I have to admit I was initially scared the book might turn out to be something like ''The Faults In Our Stars''. No offence, that book was awesome and the first book that melted my stone cold anti-romance heart and made me break down and cry like, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
But I think the movie ruined ''The Faults In Our Stars'' for me, I didn't like watching it that much.

Anyways, ''Me Before You'' was more of a refreshing portrayal of two strangers with their own conflicts that form a beautiful friendship that later turns into something more. Will Traynor is such a charming person and Louisa being her awkward and playful self really make the characters come to life from the book.
The author did a brilliant job at keeping the book very realistic, and you can see it happening like a real life story. There are no sugar-coating, fairytale-ish, Beauty and the Beast connection kind of things and (thank heavens!) no marshmallow dialogues. I just wished, for the sake of my sanity, she could have spared some tear-jerking parts in the ending as a result of Will's decisions. But hey, life is unfair and Jojo Moyes knows it.

I don't mean to compare this with TFIOS again, but that book had plenty of dialogues that wouldn't have had the same impression in the world here outside the pages. to be honest.
The dialogues are all witty, entertaining and fit nicely with the character's personalities, and I can't wait to see that in the movie. The trailer had given me more expectations.


DISCUSSIONS AND THOUGHTS (SPOILERS AHEAD)

The climax of the book kicks off when Louisa finds out that Will wants to die, and has only promised for the sake of his parents a 6 months time to rethink his decision and decide whether his life as a quadrilepgic is worth living. I hate to admit that any reader can kind of find that understandable and that it's not the rumblings of a grumpy old man. In his younger years, Will had lived a very energetic and adventurous life, with extreme sport hobbies and exploring places as well as having a good career. All of this must now be neglected because of his disability and Will hates to depend on others for help for the rest of his life.
Louisa then decides she is going to use her 6 months contract time to stay by Will's side and make him see all the possbilites that life has for him in the future.

Louisa's life details are the strongest point of this novel. She is from a middle-class, quite content with the little things she has and loves the low-key life, which some people may label as ''boring''. People like Will Traynor, for instance. While Louisa continues with her mission to help Will, the latter also holds a big influence in her life, making her see how much she herself is missing in the world out there by staying in the quiet, old town for so many years. His words begin to give a shape to her dreams, change her perspecive and think of her own future as well. Thus, the title ''Me Before You'', because Louisa is not the same girl anymore before she met Will.
 It's a very thought-provoking book that enlightens you on life, death and disabilities. Most of take for granted the things we are blessed with.

Also, Louisa's boyfriend is the most uselessly annoying character ever created. Please make him disappear from my brain.




MEMORABLE QUOTES

“Push yourself. Don't Settle. Just live well. Just LIVE.” 

“Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.” 

“Hey Clark', he said.'Tell me something good'. I stared out of the window at the bright-blue Swiss sky and I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn't have met, and who didn't like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other. And I told him of the adventures they had, the places they had gone, and the things I had seen that I had never expected to. I conjured for him electric skies and iridescent seas and evenings full of laughter and silly jokes. I drew a world for him, a world far from a Swiss industrial estate, a world in which he was still somehow the person he had wanted to be. I drew the world he had created for me, full of wonder and possibility.”

“I thought, briefly, that I would never feel as intensely connected to the world, to another human being, as I did at that moment.” 

“I told him I loved him,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he just said it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were wide and bleak . “How am I supposed to live with that?”

“Only you, Will Traynor, could tell a woman how to wear a bloody dress.”